


Berserker

by cat_77



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Protective Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 03:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17841686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: He lost sight of his sister, and then he lost sight of control.





	Berserker

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly don’t remember what song came on to make me think of this, but I rather liked the thought of one of the very few things to make Alec lose control this way.
> 
> * * *

Isabelle stumbled. He watched from his perch while she strode into the thick of it, demons of all types swarming around her. He watched her take out one after another after another, while he did the same from afar. He watched another wave approach from the perimeter, Jace and Clary calling out numbers and tactics even as they charged at anything that got close.

He watched as she fell.

Things became a blur after that. There was a scream and, as Izzy was not known for such things and his own throat felt raw from the effort, he was fairly certain he was the source. He fired upon everything he could get an angle on, a pocket of death where she had stood though he had yet to see her regain her footing.

It wasn’t enough. He had to know. He had to do something. He had to...

He jumped down from his self-chosen vantage point and shot at anything that did not have a rune marked against its skin. He strode forward, volley after volley, his path obvious and he knew better than to make such a rookie mistake but he didn’t care. He shot and shot and, when they got too close, physically jabbed the arrows at the foolish challengers, a single shaft taking down multiple enemies until it was no longer usable. He felt their resistance, and then he felt that resistance give way with their lives.

He reached to nock another, and found his quiver empty. His hidden reserves were as well even though he couldn’t remember using them, only firing again and again until his fingers were numb with a pain that he didn’t have time for. Given that his quiver had been enchanted by Magnus himself, there had been far more than the standard allotment and all had been put to good use.

It was no matter as that was not his only weapon. He grabbed the blade from his holster and set about using that instead. He was not as known for his skills with one, not like he was with the bow, but he was far better than average. One had to be when one’s parabatai was renowned as the best there was, and one trained with said parabatai on a regular basis.

He spun and slashed and parried against claws and tails and teeth. Each movement brought him forward, ever forward, towards where he last heard the telling crack and saw the glint of silver against black. He saw only skins and scales and things he’d rather not identify now, and he watched as they all crumbled before him.

He heard his name, a gasp of surprise more than anything else. He then felt Jace at his side, his determination bound to his own, his heart and thoughts a mirrored reflection. The only allowance Jace made was to make certain Clary was in the clear, that she was not left vulnerable while they slaughtered the others. Considering he was damn near momentarily blinded by the rune only she could create, the one that fried anything demon-like that got near, he was fairly certain she had things under control. He spared her a glance anyway, verified it for himself, and then returned to the task at hand.

They cleared the path and she followed behind them, holding any stragglers at bay. Not that there were many. Most were either dead from dual blades or had already fled, a lot more of the former versus the latter. When he spun with a particularly vehement downstroke, he caught sight of her light again and turned away back towards the darkness and everything that lurked there soon enough.

He finally reached the mass of bodies and ichor and began to dig with one hand while keeping his blade ready with the other. Jace did the same and, together, they tossed the dripping mess left and right until he caught a glimpse of red. Designer fabric, not blood. It could not and would not be blood. He would not allow it. Pale skin. Dark runes. A glint of silver.

That silver snapped upwards and outwards and, as a testament to how well they knew their sibling, both of them simply leaned to opposite sides and let the whip sail harmlessly between them. It was followed almost immediately by the glow of a blade and they dodged that as well. “She’s alive,” Jace breathed in relief, but Alec refused to believe it until he held her in his arms. 

He did that soon enough. They cleared a fair deal of debris off of her, and neither were pleased with how little she was able to help with that task. Her legs were covered with gashes and bruises, arms with abraded skin, and she wiped dripping red that was not designer in nature from her eyes when she pushed her hair back away from her face. “Can you move?” he asked, knowing she would understand he meant more than a single hand. As soon as she nodded, he swept her upwards, past just to her feet, and took her weight entirely as his own.

She wrapped her arms around his torso and held on tight and it was only because she was so close that he could feel the slight tremors, the dampness against his shirt where she briefly buried her face. He vaguely noticed the reassuring nothings that Jace whispered, nearly missed Clary’s call to confirm they had her. There were still things slithering around them, sluggish, slow, cautious. He refused to let go of her even as he turned to take on the next challengers, blade spun to a ready position in his hand.

Only one being was truly on its feet aside from the Nephilim, and it took him a stupidly long time to recognize it as Magnus. Dressed in black and silver of his own, hands held out before him in a non-threatening manner which was ridiculous considering his fingers were still tipped with blue flames. “Alexander?” the warlock confirmed. Not the. His. Magnus was his. Magnus was his heart and soul as much as the family that had just fought by his side.

He didn’t understand the tone though, nor the uneasy way that Magnus still regarded him. Or at least he didn’t until he heard Jace explain, “Izzy went down. He went a little berserker.”

“I see that,” Magnus said in the same soft voice. He glanced around at the death and destruction with raised eyebrows. “Is all of this your handiwork?”

The haze around his vision was beginning to clear and he took in the sheer amount of bodies and gore, both around him and enveloping him, as he reluctantly sheathed his blade. “I had help,” he said, but his answer was overlapped by both Jace and Clary insisting he was the source of the vast majority of it. 

“Just the four of you took on a horde of this size?” Magnus asked. His voice was tinged with doubt, exasperation, and a little frustration all rolled up into one.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this big,” Jace defended their life choices. He gestured widely to encompass the sheer mass of it all with a shrug.

“They came at us too fast to call for help, at least at first,” Clary agreed. She held up her phone, screen cracked but clearly still usable. “I called for backup while Jace covered me, but they probably won’t get here for another ten minutes or so.”

“Which would have been too late,” Alec pointed out. He shivered at the thought of what could have happened to Izzy or the others if he had just sat back and waited. He then pushed that thought away to ignore again later. “How... Why are you here?” he managed to ask. Clary hadn’t mentioned a second call.

As snap of his fingers and Magnus held up Alec’s discarded bow and quiver. “Enchanted,” he reminded him. Alec nodded as he knew that much. That was why he had the sheer number of arrows and why each and every one of them had been used appropriately. Magnus pursed his lips as if unsure if his next words would be welcomed or not. “Not only does your quiver hold several flights more than any other, it calls out to me should it ever find itself empty. Overprotective, perhaps. Hubris? Clearly as I thought I could be of aid in such situations. But the intent was there, and well-meaning at that.”

“Why didn’t you just make it always full? Now that would be helpful,” Jace huffed.

“Because even Alexander has his limits, despite what he may think,” Magnus retorted easily enough. “I gave him far more than he should ever need. If he were to use them all, then surely exhaustion and/or injury would come into play. Instead of letting himself continue, I thought this to be a wise alternative.”

“I’m not tired,” Alec protested. To give credence to his words, he grabbed the dagger from Jace’s holster and tossed it at an opportunistic demon. His mark was, of course, true. He felt that proved his point more than he could currently put into semi-coherent sentences that could be used against him.

Magnus eyed him shrewdly. “Just how many runes are humming along right now to keep you on your feet?”

Alec hadn’t activated anything when he made his charge, and admitted that readily enough. “Just the usual from when we were called out: stamina, accuracy, make sure I don’t fall on my ass...” Clary snorted at his use of her preferred name for the one his parents grilled into them as named “sure of foot” which, really was a fancier version of saying the same thing.

“Which means you’re going to crash, and probably sooner rather than later,” Magnus guessed. Alec protested, but was ignored as his lover ordered, “Put your sister down or at least hand her over to Blondie so that I can assess your wounds, both and/or all of you. The reinforcements can deal with cleanup and any stragglers and, barring anything serious, we can deal with takeout and making certain you lot are not vulnerable when you pass out.”

Alec was doubtful and it took Izzy poking him in the side and insisting, “I can stand on my own. Also, you’re kind of squishing me.” It was then he realized that not only did he still hold her, he did so in a way that her toes were not quite touching the ground. It was the fear that he was hurting her that made him reluctantly start to lower her. The first hint of a wobble though, and he readied himself to pick her up again, only to find that Jace had already swept her up into his own arms.

“I’ve got her. Magnus, can you handle him?” Jace promised, adjusting his grip slightly. Isabelle wrapped an arm around him to steady herself, but rolled her eyes to show that she did so under protest. She also grabbed Jace’s seraph blade for herself given she had tossed her own away earlier, whip back to its usual place as a bracelet, just to make it clear she was still more than capable of defending them if need be.

“What do you mean ‘handle me’? I’m perfectly fine,” Alec protested. It probably would have been more convincing if Clary had not been able to take his own blade out of his hand with minimal fuss while Magnus bodily pushed him back to a full upright position. If he hadn’t even realized he had listed to the side up until that point, it was nobody’s business but his own. If he hadn’t even realized he had grabbed the blade again, well, same thing. At least he was fairly certain he had kept his words steady and sure and slur-free.

The look that Magnus gave him argued otherwise.

Clary noticed the reinforcements finally approaching and, such was his life, no one even questioned when she ordered them to search for stragglers and report in if there were any issues with the cleanup. The area was a mess of demon guts and body parts, some of their attackers dissolving when hit with the blessed weapons and others simply dying. It would take hours to fully analyze and to scrub, hours that usually he would at least partially oversee himself but he had the feeling that option was decidedly not on the table at the given moment.

“You do know that I’m still in charge, right?” he grumbled.

“Technically I was made the Head of the Institute and assigned you to run it,” Jace reminded him. Alec knew that the one time Jace had actually been careful and specific in his paperwork would come back to bite him in the ass someday. “Now I’m assigning you to take a damned break, them to listen to Clary, and Elise to make sure they actually do it.” The woman in question nodded at her orders and then turned to do just that. He couldn’t even argue with the choice as she was on the short list to be in charge of Ops when the others were out. She had duty and snark in equal measures, and would report in if there were any issues readily enough.

As if to lend credence the choice, the tiny blonde woman stabbed a demon that had used the cover of its dead brethren to lurk and wait to attack with barely a glance. A nod towards Alec and his first wave team, and she barked out what needed to be done without a pause for breath. He made a mental note to introduce her to Lydia, who was looking for a second in command for her own assignment, and really hoped he remembered said note when he was finally able to do something about it.

Magnus, whose hand had still not left Alec’s arm, looked around in satisfaction before he announced, “Well, that’s settled, shall we head home?”

Not that there was much choice in the matter. A portal was conjured with barely a thought and Alec knew that if he didn’t approach the portal, the portal would approach him soon enough. He still made Jace go through first, an exhausted but miffed Isabelle in his arms, then waited for Clary to follow before he reluctantly started to put one foot in front of the other. He heard Magnus’ promise that they were safe, hoped he meant everyone both family and non, and then felt the rush of energy surround him. He closed his eyes against it all, only to open them again in the quiet sanctuary of the loft.

His coat was removed, and then his boots, and he watched as Jace struggled to do the same for Isabelle who was slumped on the couch barely awake herself, smiling when he cursed at the sheer number of buckles and laces involved. A snap of Magnus’ fingers, and they were set neatly off to the side with his own. He felt the cool rush of his healing rune being activated, but couldn’t say who held the stele for certain other than he was fairly sure it wasn’t him. Another snap and the stickiness of the ichor and blood disappeared, along with the last of his gear which was thankfully immediately replaced with a pair of sweatpants and an old and impossibly soft t-shirt.

There were words, barely recognizable as such as fast as he was fading. Something about the guest room and washing up and that wouldn’t do at all. He knew he would be more comfortable in his own bed and the others more comfortable on an actual mostly flat surface, but that wasn’t what he wanted, not yet, and he knew he wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Instead, he plopped down beside his sister and shifted only slightly to make it easier for her to use him as a pillow. There was the familiar weight of Jace as he settled against his feet, and a push against that which he assumed was Clary settling in as well.

“Or that works,” Magnus muttered, and he could almost hear the eye roll even if he couldn’t open his own eyes enough to see it. “I’m going to assume the takeout will wait then,” was added without malice. There was the soft warmth of a blanket laid over him, a pillow shoved behind his head, and an elbow shoved against his ribs. He drifted off knowing that he and those he cared about were safe, and that was all that truly mattered.


End file.
